Why Did China Smack the Sat? (Updated)
So why did China blow up one of their satellites last week? The Times offers up a few possible explanations:
Having a weapon that can disable or destroy satellites is considered a component of China’s unofficial doctrine of asymmetrical warfare. China’s army strategists have written that the military intends to use relatively inexpensive but highly disruptive technologies to impede the better-equipped and better-trained American forces in the event of an armed conflict — over Taiwan, for example...
Some analysts suggested that one possible motivation was to prod the Bush administration to negotiate a treaty to ban space weapons. Russia and China have advocated such a treaty, but President Bush rejected those calls when he authorized a policy that seeks to preserve “freedom of action†in space. Chinese officials have warned that an arms race could ensue if Washington did not change course.
Now, Beijing officials aren't even admitting they destroyed the orbiter, yet. But the China Matters blog uncovers a post by a self-proclaimed Chinese soldier, who seems to reinforce the scare-'em-into-cutting-a-deal motive:
This overweening country [the USA] began to regard space as its own back yard. The national space policy it announced in 2006 nonchalantly regarded space as its private property. At the same time, when China at the United Nations proposed a special international organization to resolve the actual problems of a space arms race that were being faced, the United States, acting as a country far in the lead in space, vehemently opposed, saying that there was no arms race in space...
We hope... [this] will smack the American carnivores back to reason. History shows us that if you don't hit Americans, they aren't willing to sit down at the negotiation table.
This was actually the fourth time the Chinese tried to destroy a satellite, GlobalSecurity.org notes. And as "reckless, self-defeating and stupid" as the test was, adds Arms Control Wonk Jeffrey Lewis, the test was legal, because there's "currently no prohibition on destructive ASAT [anti-satellite] testing. There should be."
UPDATE 01/21/07: Last week's test has given a "shiver of hope" to the "nation’s star warriors, frustrated that their plans to arm the heavens went nowhere for two decades despite more than $100 billion in blue-sky research," Bill Broad says in a tart opinion piece.
ALSO:
* China Tests Satellite Killer?
* China Space Attack: Unstoppable
* Beijing's Next-Gen Sat Strike
* Satellite Killer's Big Impact
* China Sat-Killer Not Yet Weapons Grade?
* Who Ordered the Satellite Strike?
Mr.Lubin said that
"We have one, simple, obvious way of countering this -- to increase the sheer mass of our orbitaing arsenal of data-collecting satellites, and, possibily, defensive satellties.
Phptpgraph and other data-collecting satellites are cheap and easily deployable, and could be sent aloft in enormous numbers, on demand. And they could be deployed at altitudes other than the approximately 500miles altitude that they are now deployeed.
The simplest, and at the moment, the only reasonable responce that we should be prepared to make, in anwer to the Chinese' development of a working anti-satellite system, is simply one of numbers, of deplying a massive array of srveillance satellites, at several operational altitudes."
If you can see it, you can hit it.
If you can hit it, you can kill it.
So why does the US have to overwhelm the scopes with targets?
Apart from that, even if these satellites are cheap and of military value, this does not exclude the possibility that the GPS birds won't get shot down and thus reduce the ability of the US to wage conventional warfare.
IMHO, there are two ways to counter that threat. Either you put a "shield" in orbit: this can be a highly maneuverable spacecraft with anti-missile capabilities, which needs something like 20 to 30 years to develop
Or you take out the Chinese "stick". I do not mean that there is a direct attack on Chinese soil to eradicate the launch bases or the plants producing the missiles, from the face of the earth.
A subtler and more effective approach would be to eliminate the reasons that would lead to such a confrontation. Call it democratisation, westernisation or detente. In any case, MAD is still on the table and we don't like it.
US and China have to live together. This does not mean that anyone has to boast about his
"capabilities" or show that he is the top dog.
A focus on the economy is the way to go.
China has single-handedly saved the Japanese and German economies and is a beloved partner of most African states. US economy is supported only by the weak dollar and the cutting-edge technology that permits some exports.
We Europeans do not want to witness a US-China confrontation and be forced to take sides. We won't give a shit if the US economy collapses or US armed forces position in Asia becomes untenable. We won't care if all US satellites are shot down. We won't get involved in another war of US initiative. We only want peace, prosperity and convergence of our Member States. If it means to stay neutral, so be it. If it means stopping to believe in the US military supremacy and fearful capabilities and accepting that the Russians or the Chinese or we can do better in that area, then the US-Europe "special" relationship will be reevaluated. Mr.Cameron, the next Torry PM has shown the way. And many Europeans share his or even stronger feelings and beliefs.
P.S. Tom Clancy has simulated international relations as "a country f...g another". It doesn't have to be this way. And it does not promote dialogue to say "US did this" "China did that" and post inflamatory comments like the ones from "lebanese" and "mathmatics".
Posted by: Nikos Koutsis at February 5, 2007 3:12 AM